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Long wait worth it for 'Pikmin 3' (review)

By Jeff Hoard, The Oakland Press

Updated:
08/01/2013 07:40:42 AM EDT

A mix of gorgeous visuals, unique level design and extra content makes this the best Wii U game to date.

It's been nearly nine years since we've seen a Pikmin game from Nintendo, and that wait finally ends with the release of "Pikmin 3" for the Wii U. A mix of gorgeous visuals, unique level design and extra content makes this the best Wii U game to date.

The story follows Alph, Brittany and Captain Charlie, who are on a mission to find food for their home planet so their species can survive. After finding a world filled with delicious fruit, they crash land on the descent and become separated. Thus begins their journey to find each other, recover all kinds of fruit and uncover mysteries surrounding the planet -- all with the help of the colorful, cute Pikmin.

You start off small with Alph, who discovers that Red Pikmin are fire resistant and can deal some pretty good damage in numbers. While searching for his partners, you'll eventually find more onions to unlock new Pikmin types, like Rock Pikmin who bust through solid objects and Blue Pikmin who breathe underwater. Certain areas in the world are blocked off in the beginning, teasing you to come back later with the right Pikmin type to unlock them.

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Up to 100 of these little minions can be commanded at once and it's really cool to see them accomplish tasks like building bridges, destroying barriers and defeating enemies. Your little army increases when enemies and colored pellets are absorbed in the onion, creating more Pikmin. Stocking up on all the different types is important. Unique and cleverly designed enemies bring about different ways of turning your Pikmin into ghosts, from slurping them up to trapping them in bubbles. Boss fights are exciting and not repetitive, with each one requiring a different strategy to defeat them.

The original "Pikmin" contained a very strict 30-day time limit to complete the story. "Pikmin 3" isn't stressful in that sense, although there are some important aspects of the game to keep an eye on. The action takes place during daylight hours, where you're free to run around and do whatever you please until nighttime, when it automatically sends your explorers to the ship to lift off into space. As long as your Pikmin are in your squad or near their onion by the time the countdown hits zero, they'll scurry back into their onion shelter. If not, you'll feel like a very bad person when the monsters come along and eat the stragglers.

Aside from some muddy ground textures, this game has been polished beautifully.

At the end of each day, the three explorers are hungry and drink a container of juice. While progressing through the story, you'll have to be on the lookout for fruit to collect to be turned into consumption. You'll lack a juice buffer the first few days of exploration, but as you progress there will be more than enough fruit discovered to ease that worry.

A nice thing about day-to-day setup is if you have a really bad day -- like losing a lot of Pikmin in a boss fight or to enemies -- you can simply restart it over without losing too much progress. Overall, it's not a hard game until you reach the final area where the difficulty level dramatically spikes upward -- mostly because everything before it has such a relaxing feel.

"Pikmin 3" supports multiple control types. For several days, I played using just the GamePad, which also features a map of the area on the touchscreen. But then I opted for the Wiimote and Nunchuck setup, and never looked back. It's so much easier to aim Pikmin by pointing at the screen and rounding them up with the whistle. However, I put the GamePad beside me since the map is really useful to find lost Pikmin and sending part of my group off somewhere automatically with the touch of a finger.

With all three explorers found, you can separate them and accomplish multiple tasks. There are also several puzzles that are solved by separation, too, but most of the time I found everyone being together worked out just fine.

After the main story is completed, which took me a little over 10 hours with half of the fruit types found, you can go back prior to defeating the final boss to find the rest of the fruit and other hidden items. Luckily, there are two other modes of play that'll keep this game from collecting dust on the shelf.

Mission Mode includes single player and co-op games where you collect as much treasure or defeat as many enemies as you can in a time limit to receive medals, and bosses can be fought -- a feature I adore in games. Bingo Battle pits two players against each other who race to collect objects to get a Bingo first. It's a blast chasing for fruit and messing with the other player to make sure he/she doesn't progress far, and there are a variety of fun stages to play.

Finally, it would be a crime to not even mention the visuals of "Pikmin 3." To simply put it, it's the best looking Wii U game to date, and probably will be for a while. Aside from some muddy ground textures, this game has been polished beautifully. It utilizes a full color palette that stands out in HD, the lighting effects are superb and the frame rate doesn't miss a beat. For all the talk of Wii U being an underpowered console, it doesn't show here.

The software lineup has been bare for the Wii U console since after launch, and it shows with its struggling sales numbers. Nintendo is promising a steady flow of quality games as the holiday season approaches, and "Pikmin 3" is an excellent start.

4 stars out of 4

A copy of "Pikmin 3" was supplied by Nintendo for this review. The game releases Aug. 4.

Jeff Hoard writes about video games for Digital First Media. He can be reached at jeff.hoard@oakpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffHoard921. His blog is www.yay4videogames.blogspot.com.

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